The Government has today published its long awaited response to the Online Harms White Paper.Despite evidence of racist, abusive and anti-Semitic content in newspaper comment sections, those social media platforms have been effectively exempted from the proposed regulatory regime.Commenting, Hacked Off Policy Director Nathan Sparkes said,

“The public have already been forced to wait years for much needed reforms to tackle online harms, yet the proposals published today are hopelessly weak and manifestly inadequate.“Millions of people are subjected to racist, anti-Semitic and misogynistic abuse on newspaper-owned social media platforms every day, otherwise known as “comment sections”. By effectively failing to include these platforms under the remit of its proposals, the Government risks undermining the entire system.“The Government must start taking online harms more seriously than this, and urgently act to address this damaging oversight.”